What "free" campsite software actually charges
Software that calls itself free almost never is — it just moves the price somewhere you notice it later. The most common model is a commission on every booking: the tool is free to install, then quietly takes a percentage of each reservation it touches. Over a busy season that is often far more than a flat monthly fee.
Others are free until you need the part that matters — payments, guest registration, an export for the Treuhänder — and then it is a paid upgrade. Grondia takes the opposite approach: one clear price, and the money from a booking stays yours.
No per-booking commission, ever
This is the number that decides whether "free" was ever cheap. Grondia charges no per-booking commission — not on your own website, not on any booking that runs through the platform. A guest who books a € 400 stay pays for a € 400 stay, and all of it lands in your account.
That is the whole reason a paid tool can beat a free one: over a season, a few percent skimmed off every reservation adds up to far more than a predictable monthly subscription.
What you actually pay
In Germany the pricing is published, not hidden behind a sales call: from € 150 per month, billed yearly, and billing yearly saves up to around 17 percent. In Germany it is a tailored quote — Preis auf Anfrage — that includes onboarding, still with no per-booking commission.
Every plan runs on a 12-month minimum term with a one-time setup fee that covers onboarding, data migration and training. There are no hidden fees layered on top and no surprise charge for the feature you needed all along.
What the price includes
A free tool that does one thing still leaves you paying for the rest. Grondia is all-in-one: the booking engine, billing with compliant SEPA invoices, the PMS, the POS, compliance and analytics are one system under one login.
Every plan also includes a website builder with an embedded booking widget, so you can take direct, commission-free bookings on your own site from day one. Add-ons like the Channel Manager or Dynamic Pricing are there if you want them, priced openly, never bundled in to inflate the base.
Where the honest math lands
Put the two models side by side. A "free" tool at, say, a few percent per booking scales its cost with your success — the better your season, the more it takes. A flat Grondia subscription does not move when you sell more, so every extra booking is pure upside.
Add the things you no longer buy separately — a till, a booking widget, a registration process, a Treuhänder export — and the all-in-one price usually beats paying for "free" plus commission plus a stack of point tools.